


Fall in the City

by eyeslikerain



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: AU second year in Hampden, Established Relationship, M/M, Richard is a bit awkward, a trip to Manhattan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-15 16:23:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11809737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyeslikerain/pseuds/eyeslikerain
Summary: Mr. Hobart went on polishing something and brought me back into the workshop:“So, Francis and you live together now, I hear?”“We are roommates, yes.” I was suddenly embarrassed and stopped caressing the chair.“Roommates. I see.”His dark eyes gleamed in the dusty twilight. I felt my cheeks turn hot.“It’s good for Francis to have a – roommate at last. Seems to suit him very well. He looks much better than last summer.”





	Fall in the City

**Author's Note:**

> This is happening about ten years before "The Goldfinch" - I was trying to figure out why Francis got an invitation to Theo's engagement party.

The following weekend, Francis and I were driving into New York City. Francis wanted to attend an auction at Sotheby’s with Mr. Blackwell – not to buy, just to expand his knowledge of early American furniture, as Mr. Blackwell said. Having studied the existing literature and the books Mr. Blackwell had recommended him thoroughly, Francis was excited to see some of the pieces in real.  
October still lingered with beautiful fall foliage, and though it was chillier in the mornings, we had the top of Henry’s car, which was now officially mine, down. Francis was driving the first leg of the journey as he wanted me to have a good look at the breathtaking scenery he promised me in Hudson Valley. He had driven here quite often, for me it was a first. And it truly was remarkable to see the majestic, serene landscape unroll before us, the river getting broader and slower every few miles, the vibrant fall foliage hugging the broad silver stream in an orgy of colors. I had put the map on my lap, intent on watching and inhaling every information I could get, but soon I didn’t look at it anymore and grew silent. This last wave of beauty, the last flaming into utterly crazy, burning colors touched me deeply. We drove high above the ever broadening river, passing several impressive bridges and equally impressive large mansions, when Francis turned into a deserted designated parking lot giving a magnificent view of the valley. We got out silently, stood at the fenced - off edge and just looked. As far as the eyes reached, the most splendid symphony of fall colors unfolded before us. I held Francis in my arms from behind, letting my hand rest flat over his breastbone. He leaned smoking into me and passed the cigarette back to where he assumed my lips would be every now and then. I was overwhelmed, and just when I wanted to remark that his hair had the exact color of this one sweep of trees, he turned:  
“Lost your speech? Or writing poems in your mind?”  
I kissed him:  
“I can’t say what is more beautiful, you or this flaming valley. But you two fit together very nicely with your copper tones…”  
“Come on, Sappho, we have a meeting to attend!”

For the rest of the way, I was driving. Francis just had held the cigarette we shared to my lips when I couldn’t avoid asking the question which had bothered me all the time since Henry’s immaterial visit a few days earlier:  
“Did you ever go to bed with Henry?”  
“No.”  
Francis’s answer came so quickly and decidedly that I turned my head in surprise.  
“Really? I always had assumed…”  
“We had sex, though”, he added coolly. “Twice.”  
“What?” My voice went up.  
“Richard, you, of all people, should know there isn’t necessarily a bed involved for having sex. If I might help your memory…”  
I slapped him gently and grinned, he leaned over to bite my neck.  
“No, seriously – but wait, allow me a digression before I get to the core.”  
“Now you sound like Henry himself. Would you please confine your introduction to twenty minutes.”  
We giggled.  
“Darling, I knew this would arise some day and I would rather look into your eyes while I tell it.” He took another drag of our cigarette. “Well… I want you to know, first of all, that Henry wasn’t interested in men. Zero. That’s the great difference between you and him. With you, I felt a longing, a hidden desire from the first time I was ever in a room with you. And it was painful to see you burning and looking at me and averting your eyes instantly and all that…”  
I snorted.  
“I realized that your wildest dreams would come true if we only kissed. Or touched a little. I would say you were so, so close to finding out what you really needed that everything, the tiniest touch, was utterly exciting to you. You were almost in love with the idea of finally touching a man. Am I right?”  
He held the cigarette once again to me.  
“Yes. But if this is the day of clarification, let me state that all of these feelings were exclusively connected to you.” I turned my head and raised an eyebrow.  
“I know. Dearest. What a crazy time that was.”  
“But seeing me in this state didn’t prevent you from screwing Henry?” I didn’t want to sound jealous, but couldn’t help.  
“Well, I was actually not spoiled when it came to these matters – not like now. I – you know, I just needed it every now and then. And to come back to Henry – I am certain it was a purely carnal matter for him, a necessary release. Nothing more. Could have been me, could have been Charles or whoever. You know how thorough and methodical he took his studies, and as all this same-sex-stuff is such an integral part of the ancient world, he just went with it.”  
I nodded.  
“I even suspect he had a thing with Julian in the beginning. Or even longer. Julian adored him. I guess he might have wanted more, but of course it put him into a difficult situation.” He cleared his throat. “So, these two encounters. The first was at the Bacchanal. Which might not surprise you. But I was so beside myself, really out of my mind and out of my body almost, that I didn’t know for sure if it was Henry.”  
“You didn’t?”  
“No. It could have been him, Dionysus, a deer, for heaven’s sake. It was wild. Painful. Bad. Everything was dark…”  
He looked out of his window.  
“I don’t want to remember it.”  
I took his hand into mine and let it rest on his thigh.  
“The other time was in the kitchen of my aunt’s house. You were on the porch, as well as Charles and Camilla.”  
“What? Are you serious?” I couldn’t believe my ears.  
“Yes”, Francis smirked. “It happened – rather unexpectedly. You remember the time Bunny turned the boat over, all three of us taking a dip in the lake?”  
“Yes. Bunny took most of his clothes off on the porch, Henry and you disappeared. I was reading…”  
“Somehow, it happened. On the counter. Henry initiated it, why, I don’t know. And I, well, I recognized him. It was him in the night in the woods.”  
“Was it bad again?”  
“No, not at all. Actually, it was – pleasant, even exciting a little.”  
“Well, I would expect so, with all of your classmates doing their homework just a few feet away…”  
We chuckled.  
“And Henry seemed to enjoy it this time.”  
I looked at him:  
“Bad boy.”  
He moved his head a little, sighed, pursed his lips.  
“But it was over as soon as we stopped. You know, I didn’t think of it, didn’t long for a secret trysting or whatever – it was just a crazy, horny moment.”  
“You could have asked me.”  
He shrieked with laughter.  
“Richard! Excuse me, but you were the most “I am so hetero!” – guy of all times!”  
“Stop it!”  
“I would have loved to see your face, a year ago, if I had stepped out to you, half naked and wet, and asked: fancy a hot little number?”  
“Glad you amuse yourself”, I replied curtly.  
“Oh, darling” – he moved over to kiss me – “don’t be mad. You were so cute, being so confused and blushing all the time. Hm?”  
I smiled and kissed him back.  
“Eyes on the road!”

After we had dropped the car and our bags at his mother’s place on the Upper East Side, we took the subway downtown. We had plenty of time and enjoyed a stroll through the Village, lingering in Washington Square Park and crushing yellow leaves under our shoes, getting a bottle of champagne in a liquor store and a box of dainty, tiny pastry at a French patisserie. I loved being in a large, old city – I had discovered this love over the summer, when walking the dogs around Brooklyn. I had never known there were cities in the States where you could walk – in California, we needed air-conditioned cars for the shortest errands, and there were practically no sidewalks. Even walking in Hampden felt fairly new to me. Being forced to walk the dogs several times a day made me aware of how much more one sees at this rate. I took photographs with my eyes, so to speak, of ever so many architectural details I saw: old, ornate fences overgrown with roses. A beautiful window frame. Half – opened windows, allowing a glimpse on bookshelves inside through a billowing curtain. Newspapers on door steps. Old front doors with knockers. Aged shop fronts. This was what flooded my notebooks in these days – I never took real photographs, but tried to capture the treasures I found in words, unorganized, sometimes so short I myself almost couldn’t recognize them, sometimes so ornate that I got carried away to transform them into an actual poem. When accompanying Francis to the Village the first time, I realized there would be plenty in store for my imaginary photo album. I had told him I wouldn’t go to the auction with him and Mr. Blackwell, but take a good stroll on my own.  
But before, we were invited to tea at the queer old townhouse Mr. Blackwell and his business partner, Mr. Hobart, inhabited on West Tenth. I had been entranced on our first visit by the out-of-time-feeling this place held. After having dealt with what Francis’s mother had asked him to do in the shop, we had been invited upstairs into an equally cramped kitchen. The sun shone through a ceiling skylight onto a large, tomato-red stove. Books were stacked everywhere, forcing us to traipse around as cautiously as downstairs in the crowded shop. Near the window, by the fire escape, a faded wooden saint held up a palm in benediction. Glancing around me silently, I couldn’t believe people in our days lived in such a Dickensian setting. I loved it immediately, and the two men made me feel at ease also.  
Mr. Hobart was one of the tallest and most impressive men I had ever come across. Despite his largeness, he moved with an unexpected grace, and when I had the pleasure of seeing him working on some tiny wooden detail down in the shop (or “hospital”, as he liked to call it) I realized how sensitive and careful he could be despite his build. He was on the carpenter side of the business and, not being the greatest talker and people-pleaser, mostly stayed in the workshop or helped loading and moving furniture (that was how their partnership began, as he told us some day). Mr. Blackwell was a good twenty years older and looked prematurely aged and frail due to a deformity of the back he had since childhood. He also suffered from a light limp and needed some more time on the crowded, narrow stairs. But he was the most amiable person and a great talker with old-fashioned manners. He had built excellent connections among dealers and collectors and was a sought-after authority regarding American furniture especially. That was also the connection to Francis’s family whom he had known for decades.  
So, naturally, our conversation meandered around the many members and many houses of the Abernathy’s in the beginning. I was once more awestruck at how interwoven they seemed with East Coast history, and I was quite shocked to learn about all the real estate that had been in the family for centuries. Francis had never mentioned that. Mr. Hobart prepared tea and laid out the fine pastries we had brought on a blue antique plate. I helped him lay the table with equally old, frail-feeling dishes while Francis and Mr. Blackwell chatted on pleasantly. I loved Francis when he was in such good spirits, and I was happy to see him interested in something new.  
After tea, we separated for the rest of the afternoon. I had carefully studied a map of the Village with it’s uneven lay-out, tried to memorize some of the prominent larger streets, but I got lost fairly quickly. And didn’t mind. I just drifted around, looking for beautiful details I would store in my memory. Everything looked different than in the blistering summer heat: yellow and orange leaves everywhere, the occasional pumpkins on doorsteps, a certain melancholy autumn mood around the brownstone houses, especially as the afternoon drew on and the sky clouded over even more. I browsed in some bookstores and was delighted by the broad range of subjects and books I could find. I even unearthed a quirky old book for Francis in a dusty used-book-store: “Chippendale Furniture: Genuine and Spurious”, which I thought he might like (later on, Mr. Blackwell got unusually excited, elated almost, over this treasure – he claimed it to be one of the leading and very rare books on Chippendale and urged Francis to inhale every word of it.) I enjoyed a leisurely cappuccino in a cozy little café, leafing through my vintage book finds. Passing a subway station in twilight, I found my orientation again and headed back to West Tenth.  
When I rang the green bell, it had started to drizzle. Mr. Hobart opened the door and welcomed me:  
“Come on in, come in. Would you mind stepping down with me for a minute? I just need to finish something at the shop. Just make yourself at home.”  
I left my coat on a chair and followed him through the shop to the actual shop-behind-the-shop. I loved the reek of turpentine, old wood, oil paint and varnish, the creaking floorboards, the gleams of brass and gilt in the dim light. Holding up a piece of wood that had fallen off Mr. Hobart’s work-bench, I sniffed at the cutting.  
“That’s oak. It smells dusty. Here” – he handed me another piece – “try this. That’s mahogany. It has a characteristic spicy scent. And let me see” – he rummaged about – “rosewood. Quite rare. Smells of amber-resin.”  
I had never heard of amber resin, but stored the scent in my mind. How extraordinary to be surrounded by so much beauty!  
“You keep those snippets for replacing something?”  
“Exactly. This is just one of the drawers we have.”  
I walked around slowly, snaking my way through the piles and rows of furniture.  
“May I touch this chair?”  
“Please do. Close your eyes while you feel the curves. Every piece has a rhythm of it’s own, some a melody even.”  
The first thing I saw when I closed my eyes was the fervent burst of orange and golden leaves in Hudson Valley. When I slid my hands along the spindly swellings of the chair, other images overlaid the fall trees: Francis’s thin, angular naked knees when he rode me. My hands on his narrow, elegant hips, feeling their very own rhythm.  
Mr. Hobart went on polishing something and brought me back into the workshop:  
“So, Francis and you live together now, I hear?”  
“We are roommates, yes.” I was suddenly embarrassed and stopped caressing the chair.  
“Roommates. I see.”  
His dark eyes gleamed in the dusty twilight. I felt my cheeks turn hot.  
“It’s good for Francis to have a – roommate at last. Seems to suit him very well. He looks much better than last summer.”  
Thankfully, noises from upstairs interrupted the awkward conversation: steps, laughter, the yelping and howling greeting of Cosmo, the dog.  
“Oh, here they are. Let’s get upstairs, shall we?”  
Mr. Hobart was behind me when Francis, one black glove dangling half on his hand, threw his arms around me and kissed me on the mouth:  
“Oh, did you miss me, my sweetheart?”  
His affection was so innocent and childlike that I couldn’t but take him into my arms and kiss him also:  
“I missed you awfully. So glad you are back again.”  
In this moment, I noticed an unknown, exceedingly well-dressed gentleman behind him and faltered.  
“Fear nothing. Here, we are safe.”, Francis said softly in Greek.  
I felt a pang in my stomach. I hadn’t heard his Greek in a long time and was surprised how sexy it sounded, reminding me of our very first months and my clouded, confused brain at the time. I noticed the unknown man grinning – he seemed to understand Greek? Mr. Hobart regarded me with a mockingly raised eyebrow while I freed myself from Francis’s embrace. Francis said:  
“Excuse me, Claude. May I introduce you to my…”  
“Roommate?”, Mr. Hobart suggested helpfully.  
“Well, actually… Well, however, this is Richard. And this is Claude de Plessis. We met at the auction.”  
“Enchanté de vous voir”, he shook my hand.  
“Actually, Francis was of the greatest help”, Mr. Blackwell added. “He translated superbly and helped Claude to a magnificent dresser he had been looking for for a long time. Francis even prevented him from bidding on an inferior one – I was just overwhelmed by his knowledge and his French skills!”  
“Yes”, the Frenchman added with a heavy accent, “without François, I would have made terrible mistake. On grand scale. So glad to have him at my side.”  
Francis seemed embarrassed a little.  
“Well, it was just a lucky coincidence I was there.”  
Mr. Blackwell and Claude protested loudly, while Mr. Hobart pushed us gently in the direction of the kitchen. We had been bumping into each other in the cramped hallway while taking off the wet coats. Francis used his chance to snog me in the dim back of the hallway before we joined the others. He seemed in a playful mood and I started to look forward to what might happen later on, when we were alone.  
In the kitchen, a generous, large pot simmered on the old stove and emitted heavenly forebodings of the pumpkin soup Mr. Hobart had announced. While he cleared one more chair from newspapers and books and fit him in around the table, he remarked to Claude:  
“We are in America, Monsieur le Comte. Even counts have to eat at the kitchen table here.”  
“Pas de problème, especially as I know I am not the first one. And no wonder, considering your cooking skills!”  
We had the hot, tasty soup along with fresh baguette and an assortment of cheese afterwards. It was a simple meal, but one of the coziest and fondest remembered in my life. The faint drizzle had turned into real rain that splattered loudly on the skylight. Our voices and laughter drowned the music of the rain, though, and our animated conversation didn’t stop a second. Francis was relaxed and completely at ease, sometimes holding my hand openly, sometimes massaging the inside of my wrist with his thumb or painting circles on my thigh. I was surprised at how openly and carefree he showed his affection. In Hampden, we never did in public. During the rare occasions we had seen his family, either. This was new to me: to show my love openly. To behave like heterosexual couples were free to do anytime. The possibility to do so, to behave like I wanted, was so utterly erased from my mind that I noticed only now what we were lacking. The realization was painful. But looking into the kind, animated faces around me, glowing in the candlelit room, the close and intimate circle we were here at this table, I thought that maybe we would have to redefine family. To find a family of friends and other close persons to see us through life. And why shouldn’t it work? But there was a stab in my heart. I wanted to live truthful. Francis seemed to be closer.  
When we almost had finished the second bottle of velvety Bordeaux Mr. Blackwell had supplied, Claude looked at us thoughtfully:  
“When does your université have it’s winter break? Before Noel already?”  
“Yes, around December 16, or what is it this year?”  
“Do you have plans?” He looked at me.  
“No, actually not. I am from California, which is a rather long way, and I am not that close with my parents. Francis invited me to spend the holidays with his family.”  
“I see”, he mumbled, turning his wineglass around and playing with the stem.  
“How about that: François, I have been thinking all evening how I could reward you for your superbe translation. You were such a help. Would you like to stay in my Paris apartment the week before Christmas? I will be in the country already. I have five daughters…” he shrugged and looked at us almost apologetically.  
“Are you serious?”, Francis gasped. I was speechless.  
“Well, yes. That’s the least I can do for you. If you’d like to be in a dirty old city at all.”  
“We would love to! Wouldn’t we, darling?”  
I was still overwhelmed. I had wanted to go to Europe all my life, but considering my financial situation the wish had slowly travelled to the bottom of my list of dreams.  
“Hm?”  
All of them looked expectantly at me.  
“That sounds so marvelous… I would love to, but… Your offer is too generous.”  
“Richard, if I told you in numbers how much Francis saved Monsieur le Comte today, you wouldn’t hesitate a second.”, Mr. Blackwell interjected.  
I looked at Francis. His eyes were large.  
“Shall we?”  
“Yes”, he whispered. “Just imagine…”  
“So that’s settled. Wonderful. I will leave information with the concierge, and you two just feel at home. It’s a modest flat” – Mr. Hobart coughed and threw me a funny look – “but I think you might find it quite charming. And it’s ideally located, in the Marais. You could do most of the interesting things by foot.”  
After some more incredulous looks and squeezes of my hand, Francis and the Count exchanged addresses (he apologized because his cook and the maids would be in the country already). He wrote down the address of the best bakery near his apartment, Mr. Blackwell urged us to go see a small Manet he liked especially in the Musée d’Orsay, and Mr. Hobart just looked at us, serene and benevolently. I still couldn’t believe my luck.


End file.
